Divided by a common tongue

[queneva]

Contemplate the word 'wry'.

I use it as an irony marker in text-based roleplay. My main character's not-infrequent wry smiles are (intended as) a sign of fond dry humour.

I've just found, during the post-mortem after playing with someone fairly intensively for over a year, that while I understand 'wry' primarily as TheFreeDictionary's definition 1:

1

Comments

[stephanie_pegg]

Gosh. Well, it's good to get that cleared up.

I had the same issue where someone I was talking to online kept using :smirks: as an emoticon, meaning something like your meaning 1, and I kept wondering why he was deliberately trying to wind people up.

[milites]

Oh.

Now I should probably check with a couple of people what they mean when they're smirking, since I'd assumed they're being obnoxious...

[queneva]

It didn't get cleared up until after an in-game heart was broken, alas.

And I'm completely with you about 'smirk'. I think some people use it to mean something like 'smiles without showing teeth', but I can't read it without thinking 'supercilious bastard'.